It's a California agency few people have ever heard of, but the Administrative Office of the Courts used taxpayer dollars to allow staff lawyers to telecommute from as far away as Minnesota and Maryland.

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In one case, an AOC lawyer making nearly $10,000 a month, telecommuted from Geneva, Switzerland.

"It is outrageous that this insular, unaccountable bureaucracy has been empowered to such an extent that we're allowing lawyers to telecommute from Switzerland," said Maryanne Gilliard, a Sacramento Superior Court judge.

Gilliard is a member of the Alliance of California Judges, a renegade group of more than 400 justices who have openly criticized the Administrative Office of the Courts as a top-heavy bureaucracy with too many managers.

The report found the motive for telecommuting was "to avoid the positions becoming vacant."

Telecommuting made face-to-face meetings impossible, raised questions about supervision and displayed, "a seeming arrogance ... in the eyes of many budget-strapped courts that cannot afford the luxury of such arrangements," the report concluded.

"If you're a telecommuting lawyer, you either need to do something else or come back to California and do your J-O-B," Gilliard said.

KCRA 3 tried talking to the AOC about the findings, but officials declined to be interviewed on camera, referring us instead to a YouTube video response from California's Supreme Court Justice.

"And now with this report, we have an invaluable tool," said Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in the video.

Cantil-Sakauye added, "I'm confident that we will continue to re-examine our practices and the activities of the AOC."

The high court and the state's top justices are now seeking public comment on the report, which includes more than 100 recommendations.

"I anticipate that it will help yield change for the better," said Cantil-Sakauye.

Yet those changes, including restrictions on telecommuting, will have to be vetted by a special committee.

Some judges remain skeptical.

"The bottom line is that we are in a financial meltdown in the courts," said Gilliard.

"We cannot afford this type of perk for attorneys or for that matter for anyone."

KCRA 3 learned that the lawyer telecommuting from Switzerland will continue working from Geneva until April 2013, when he is scheduled to be repatriated.